


Between the Gears

by daphnerunning



Category: Mother 2: Gyiyg no Gyakushuu | EarthBound
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-21
Updated: 2012-12-21
Packaged: 2017-11-21 20:38:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/601827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daphnerunning/pseuds/daphnerunning
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes, at Christmas, there doesn't need to be a reason.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Between the Gears

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ShamanicShaymin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShamanicShaymin/gifts).



This is a dream.

 

It has to be a dream, because Jeff is all alone, and he’s not _supposed_ to be all alone, not anymore. They’d all promised. It’s been a long, long time since he’s walked by himself in the snow, feeling the crunch of it under his boots and knowing that if he looked back, he’d see just how deep he’d sunk in the snow, being able to calculate his own body weight by the hardness of the snow and the sound of the crunch and the imprint of his boots.

 

Nowadays, he has better things to think about.

 

For the last three Christmastimes he’s been with his friends, taking turns having it at a different house each year. Puu brings a new princess each year (at least, he calls them all Princess, they all have jolly long foreign names that Jeff finds it much too difficult to pronounce), Tony gets far too excited hanging mistletoe everywhere and hissing when Jeff walks too close by someone else, and Paula makes a series of jokes about using only the oven for cooking since the frying pan is more useful for keeping the boys in line. Ness always gives everyone handmade gifts, and Jeff gets funny looks for handing everyone their own appliances back, bright sparkling and with lots of new functions after he’d smuggled them out under pretext of visiting. Nowadays, Christmas is a nice thing, rather than wishing he were at Tony’s house pulling crackers and drinking cocoa instead of alone at school.

 

This time, everything is a bit...odd.

 

He’s alone, and there are robots looking at him, blinking mechanical eyes slowly. He stumbles over something--a pair of C-batteries. He picks them up, then examines the nearest robot. “Odd,” he says aloud to himself, reaching to touch one. “Why would someone program a robot with eyelids?”

 

“Hello, Jeff.”

 

Jeff blinks behind his glasses. “You know my name?”

 

The robot lets out a few whirs and clicks, zooming forward and back, then turning in a circle. It’s a lot better than any _he’s_ ever built, and his fingers itch to take it apart and see how it works. It wears a white lab coat, odd for a robot, but that makes it easy enough. “Dad?”

 

“Hello, Jeff.”

 

“Hi. What’s going on?”

 

“You ate the Christmas Pudding, didn’t you?”

 

Jeff takes off his glasses to clean them on his trousers, only to find that he isn’t wearing anything, and odder still, that neither feels cold nor minds. Even stranger, he can see just fine without the glasses, so he lets them fall, hearing nothing when they should be hitting the ground. “Think so. Why?”

 

“This is your.” Whirr, click. Whirr, buzz. “Christmas vision. Or you’ve been sick after pudding. Humans get sick.”

 

“I get sick.”

 

“You are a human, for now.”

 

Odd, that that’s some weight off his shoulder. “I’ve always suspected as much. What’s a Christmas Vision, then?”

 

“Your friend called it Magicant. That is a fanciful name, isn’t it? I prefer Great Big Christmas Vision of Inward Journey.”

 

“What’s a Magicant?”

 

Buzz, click, click, whirr, click. “Error. Error. Pudding not found.”

 

“That doesn’t make sense.”

 

“Yes it does. Everything here makes sense. Broken things make sense.”

 

The eyelids click shut, and the lights go off inside the robot. Knowing somehow that he must, Jeff turns and walks on. 

 

The road changes as he goes, into a shimmering stream of metal, and Jeff has to bend down, to touch it, to _understand_ it. A few prods of his fingers, and everything _works_. The road conveys him without him needing to walk, which is a relief. _Always thought that made more sense. Machines don’t break down as easily as humans do. Or rather, they break down more easily, but they always have a reason_.

 

A tinny, metallic bark startles him, and he looks down to see a dog-shaped robot, zooming excitedly towards his ankles. “I am a dog!”

 

“Ah. That’s nice.”

 

“It’s nice! It’s dog!”

 

“Sorry, I don’t think I know any dogs.” 

 

“I am the dog you always thought Ness and Paula should have if they got married and raised a family. Master, please change my batteries,” it asks, rolling over and popping out a stomach panel. “You promised. You promised to fix things for them.”

 

“I did?”

 

“It was the first promise you ever made.”

 

Jeff changes the dog’s batteries. Two C-batteries, of course. It extends a mechanical tongue, says, “Affectionate lick!” then retracts it, whirring and clicking away. 

 

It retreats into a house, fully customized with lines built for sleekness of flight, and the doggydoor retracts for it, then extends again. Through a transparent screen buzzing with code, he sees a pair of robots, one with a red bow, one with a baseball cap, eating a mechanical turkey with buzzsaws. That makes sense, at least. The saw hits something harder than it had been created to cut, and stops working. The two stand there, helplessly bound by their routine, unable to move until the saw starts working again. That makes sense too.

 

The looming fortress in front of him changes with every step, as his legs get heavier and he starts to lose feeling in his arms. Everything makes sense, and the giant building reveals a marquis, letters flicking open to reveal S N O W W O O D. “Is this home, then?” Jeff asks aloud, then lets out a whirr and a click for good measure. 

 

“Jeff.”

 

This robot has a hat, and, inexplicably, a head of curly red hair underneath it. It blinks, and even if the body is metal, the voice is Tony’s, no buzzing or clicking. “You don’t have to go in there, Jeff.”

 

“Is it Snow Wood?”

 

“Everywhere might be.”

 

Jeff blinks noisily, and retracts his eyelids with a click. “Am I supposed to be learning something?”

 

“Maybe you’re supposed to be learning to believe in Christmas magic!” the robot suggests, reaching out to take his hand, and metal clanks against metal. “Or inner peace, or your own bravery, or reindeer!”

 

“Error.” Jeff clears his throat, but the word still wants to come out. “Error. Error. Meaning not found.”

 

Tony’s hand is soft and warm no matter the metal, and his eyes are vibrantly green. “You can override the errors, you know. That’s part of what makes you not a robot.”

 

“Error. Error. Meaning not found.”

 

Above him, a series of frantic whirrs and buzzing settles down, an electric magic carpet retracting into the feet of a robot with a long ponytail on top of its head. “Friend Jeff. I am here to lend you the magic you have never possessed.”

 

“It’s a bit late for that, I think.”

 

“Error,” Tony says quietly. “Robots have no concept of lateness.”

 

“Ah. I suppose you’re right.”

 

Something flashes in front of his face, something that sparkles like platinum alloys reflecting the sun, and it _hurts_. It hurts like Giygas had been in his mind again, shrieking his pain, overriding everything he’d thought his system--his _human_ system--could handle.

 

But he had.

 

Gritting teeth he doesn’t have, Jeff overrides his own code. 

 

“Jeff! Oh, Jeff, what did you get me? Don’t tell me, it’s mistletoe!”

 

“Leave him alone, Tony, there’s mistletoe _everywhere_ and he couldn’t build that besides.”

 

“I will love this gift! It is smelling nice! No, you will not open mine, my Prince, it is not worthy of your divine hands!”

 

“Hey, where did you put the knife for the turkey?”

 

“I _told_ you last night, it broke, just use one of the others.”

 

Jeff opens his eyes to a world that doesn’t make sense, Christmas pudding churning in his belly. Ness is squeezing his shoulder, trying to get him to look at the wiggling box with a card that says PAULA and a sloppily-drawn heart. “Had a weird dream,” Jeff mutters, hearing his own voice again.

 

Ness grins at him. “That happens sometimes,” he says, but his thoughtful eyes say a lot more. “Come on, we’re going to sing a carol.”

 

“Why?”

 

Ness shrugs. “Do we need a reason?”

 

Tony grabs his hand and tugs him to the table, and Jeff smiles. 


End file.
